D&D 5E Removing alignments

[Primitive Screwhead]

But I think your definition of absolute Chaos is anemic.

Yes and no. My definition is anemic because it is not a definition of absolute chaos. As you state, there is a range that spans from the extremes of Lawful Stupid in which the letter of the law is followed rigidly and without question to the other extreme of Chaotic Stupid where every law is questioned and challenged simply because its a law.

In my definition of non-extreme Chaos, individuals appear lawful when they follow the rules of society, but their motivation has nothing to do with the rule of law. I am not saying "Chaotic people are Lawful but Chaotic when convienient". I am saying Chaotic people appear Lawful by happenstance when their personal rules match the rules of society.
If a Lawful person was in a Chaotic society, they could appear Chaotic as they apply the Chaotic rules of society.. and if they were Lawful to the extreme they might actualy be happy with that.


Regarding the Good/Evil split, I see that dicotomy to be based on the differing weights used in a cost/benefit analysis. Good weighs the benefit to others higher and the benefit to self lower, while Evil weighs the benefit to self higher and the benefit to others lower.
Again, this runs the gamut from the fully self-sacrificial to the fully self-absorbed. And you can have situations where evil appears good {and vice versa}.

Lay these two over each other and you get the Chaotic Good more willing to simply ignore a rule they don't like {or leave for better pastures} and a Chaotic Evil that is more willing to destroy the system and make a new one that is more fitting.
A Lawful Good that will work within the system to change a law from within for the betterment of the society, and a Lawful Evil that will try to suborn the system and force a change to fit their personal preferences.

Combined you have a pretty decent short-hand way to describe how a character could be expected to act in any given circumstance.
As long as its understood that the alignment system is a short-hand simplification of a wide spectrum of behaviors, having it written on the character sheet can be a good thing.

And much better if you and the other people at the table agree with what those two word combinations mean

{sorry, had to tie back to the OP, I have been derailing too many threads recently!}

 

[howandwhy99]

Alignment is a descriptor of behavior. Just like the Ability Scores they are not scripts for the players to perform a personality. Alignment used to shift depending upon the actions the players took with their PCs in the game. Kill enough good people with your character and your PC will become evil. That is what their alignment will show. It isn't how the player must play their character. It isn't about what your personality is. It definitely isn't describing who the player "really is" in a moral sense. It's simply a game stat that enables the DM to run a game where the multiverse acts differently toward them depending on each one's alignment. It mostly tells DMs how NPCs behave. But it's in the game as a realm, a game system, for clerics to explore how a particular fantasy ethic works within a fantasy world. The player improves their Cleric character by gaining Cleric XP when they take actions demonstrating their understanding and mastery of the alignment system. Just like Fighters with HP, AC, and To Hit tables. And Magic Users with all those spell stats and the Saving Throw chart. Different systems for different classes to master.

Which is all to say, if you don't like Alignment or don't use it (5th doesn't include much by default at all for Alignment) then chuck it. 5th has made this very easy. But IMO removing stuff shrinks the game. Like removing some of the "non-combat" stuff from earlier editions made D&D more about combat for awhile, but now some is now back as well as some new stuff. Removing stuff limits what the game includes. Without Alignment studying and practicing behavior in a "grand scheme" way is no longer possible and Clerics tend to become default Gish fighters without any other opportunities.

If you do remove Alignment, you might want to think about swinging 5E's "Interaction" pillar in the Cleric's direction to compensate. Just so they have something more their own in the game world again. Your call.

 

[Fralex]

Well, this is a discussion forum, Fralex, it's the place for considered argument. Legitimate excuses are optional.

But at the table, I agree. Alignment is just like any other rule -- the dungeon master has final say. A player is free to dictate the actions of their player, but what those actions mean in the context of the local, global, and cosmological setting is entirely the dungeon master's call.

Yeah, I was referring more to the tedious sort of argument that just interrupts fun things. When something more or less subjective is part of a character's stats, determining an "objectively right interpretation" seems more important than it actually is.

People likely to start an argument over the correct interpretation of a philosophical concept: People interested in philosophy
People likely to start an argument over the correct interpretation of a game rule based on a philosophical concept: People interested in philosophy and gamers

My big problem with the alignment system is that, frankly, the Law-Chaos part doesn't make much sense to me, which muddles up the entire chart. Good-Neutral-Evil makes a lot of sense to me. We can draw up "positive energy" and "negative energy" aligned. I can compare it to the Freudian Id, Ego, and Superego to help with the personalities - actually, that's what the Id, Ego, and Superego are for, describing attitudes and personalities.

But the Law-Chaos bits? Well, umm... there's the Blood War, which is just two evil factions fighting each other. But, you know, evil fighting other evil happens a lot. I just don't see the point of it. The game has solid reasons for there to be a radiant-balance-necrotic system. Everything else leaves me wondering and cold.

Yeah, even though the concept of good and evil gets brought up a lot as some age-old debate, it's actually not that hard to describe in general terms. "Good" means you have concern for and make an effort to improve the welfare of others. You care about whether other people get what they deserve, and try to prevent bad things from happening to good people( as per this definition) and vice versa. So I guess this means good is a recursive function? Whatever, the point is, altruism is even considered a valid concept in biology. People tend to have a good idea of what it is.

People don't grow up having an intuitive understanding of law and chaos. I personally have a lot of trouble with the concept of what Lawful Neutral means. So, like, you believe setting up and enforcing a system of rules is the right thing to do, but you're doing it for neither personal gain nor the improvement of the lives of others? What exactly does that mean the overall goal of your rules system is? It could be any one of the countless codes of belief people have devised throughout history. There's no one philosophy that is the quintessential lawful neutral belief. No wonder the modrons are just robots enforcing some vague cosmic laws the book never explains (I have my own theory that I'm satisfied with, though).

 

[Moorcrys]

People don't grow up having an intuitive understanding of law and chaos. I personally have a lot of trouble with the concept of what Lawful Neutral means. So, like, you believe setting up and enforcing a system of rules is the right thing to do, but you're doing it for neither personal gain nor the improvement of the lives of others? What exactly does that mean the overall goal of your rules system is? It could be any one of the countless codes of belief people have devised throughout history. There's no one philosophy that is the quintessential lawful neutral belief. No wonder the modrons are just robots enforcing some vague cosmic laws the book never explains (I have my own theory that I'm satisfied with, though).

Inspector Javert from Les Miserables always seemed like the quintessential LN character to me. But you're right - alignments mean different things to different folks.

 

[Sigbjorn_86]

I've never liked the tying in of alignment to game mechanics. It stank too much of the kind of binary decision marking in Bioware RPG's post-KOTOR. There was no real thought about which option to pick. Few grey choices or middle-paths. Luckily most video games are moving beyond that, and it's good 5E divorced alignment from game mechanics. After all, whose "law" does a Lawful Good character follow? The King's? The people's law? God's law? You could play Lawful Good Paladin as a servant of the realm, oppressing the common folk for the greater good. Or as a revolutionary, overthrowing the elite at the behest of the people. Or as a zealot, defying everyone in service to a god.

 

[Grainger]

I've always ignored alignment in BECMI, because I think it's stupid. This was never a problem there, so I'm really pleased that it takes such a back-seat in 5e. Sure, if a player wants to think of his/her character as "evil" or "good", or whatever, and if it helps them role-play, that's fine by me, but the actual alignment part of it has zero effect on the game (the character's thoughts and actions emerging from this are another matter, of course). The player doesn't ever have to tell me their character's alignment - it's what they say and do that matters.

I just think alignment is a hugely problematic concept, as it can easily get you into the sort of debates that philosophers have wrestled with for centuries, and aren't going to be resolved around the RPG table. If this sounds hypothetical, I'd give the example of executing "evil" prisoners; I'd say that's an evil act, pure and simple and that a "good" character shouldn't be doing it. Gary Gygax said it's unequivocally a good act (ISTR he even went as far as saying that a Paladin "should" do it!). Without alignment, none of this debate matters, since the characters do what they do, and the DM isn't passing judgement and penalising the PCs for "not obeying their alignment"*. If a player thinks they're playing in character, who am I to argue?

So hurray for 5e's approach.

*and even if we're saying that alignment is merely descriptive, one player/DM is going to think the PC is good, while the other insists he/she is evil. Which is pointlessly divisive. Why not accept that different people have different ideas of "good" and "evil", and move on?

 

[Audrik]

I've run D&D since the tail-end of 1E, and I've always found alignment to be a helpful tool. I tend to allow my players to play the characters they envision regardless of what their alignment means to me. I would imagine 5E will be no different for me. If telling my player "You're Lawful Good. You can't do that" is going to take away from the fun, I may mention the matter, and I may make note of gradual shifts, but I'm going to let it go. An act is going to have the same consequence for a character regardless of what the character sheet says.

As for Chaotic Neutral, I've never felt it meant a character just does what he wants when he wants. A character of any alignment does what he wants when he wants. Rather, I see it as meaning regardless of the happiness and light, or the misery and darkness that comes from an action, the important thing is that things get out of hand; Order and structure need to be eroded.

I ran a 2E game for about 5 years, and the main villain was a Chaotic Neutral mage. Most of the time, the group was opposed to whatever he was up to, but there were times when their goals seemed to align. They hated the mage, not because he worked against them, or because he was evil, but because every time he was involved, things escalated WAY out of control; even when it was a net gain for their side.

 

[weldon]

I just think alignment is a hugely problematic concept, as it can easily get you into the sort of debates that philosophers have wrestled with for centuries, and aren't going to be resolved around the RPG table. If this sounds hypothetical, I'd give the example of executing "evil" prisoners; I'd say that's an evil act, pure and simple and that a "good" character shouldn't be doing it. Gary Gygax said it's unequivocally a good act (ISTR he even went as far as saying that a Paladin "should" do it!).

I find this example interesting because it's an ethics problem as much as a moral problem. Execution has a dimension of "good" and "evil" to it, but the difference between execution and murder is an ethical argument more than a moral argument.

 

[Mephista]

Ethics are systematized morals. The branch of ethical study deals with moral principles.

So, I don't know if its possible to have an ethical argument without it being an equally moral argument.


And the fun thing about morals is that, according to my Psych class, they're allowed to make judgements about people and look down on them.

 

[weldon]

I was using the term ethics more colloquially in the sense of applied ethics and legal ethics rather than the broader academic definition used in your philosophy class.

The question about killing a prisoner is partly about whether or not its moral to kill someone, but it's also about who is allowed to determine guilt and innocence and who is allowed to hand out punishment. In the US, we place a lot of importance on using a jury of peers to determine guilt and innocence and typically separate that from sentencing done by judges based on precedent and statute. In a fantasy culture, paladins are charged with this legal role. The end result might be the same - the accused is executed. The main difference is the legal ethics employed in the process, not the morality of executing a criminal.

Alignment doesn't seem to handle these kinds of situational issues very well.